Dark Eden

29 Tina Spiketree

We were in terrible danger. Three people were dead. Harry and Gerry and John were killers, and they were all three shaking shaking all the time because of their heads trying to get hold of what they’d done. And there was going to be more killing, and any one of us could easily end up dead in only a waking or two. This was one of the most important meetings that anyone on Eden had ever had, but it looked as if it was going to become a pointless shouting match, not about what we needed to do but about the Shadow People, or about Harry being too noisy, or about how a woollybuck had died. We were facing death yet we were fighting about nothing at all.

But then John silenced everyone. He absolutely silenced us. He took away our breath.

‘Angela has come to me,’ he said. ‘She came to me over by Deep Pool. She told me she wants her children to spread out over Eden and not stay in one place pining for Earth. She wants us to be at home here in Eden, not just in this valley but at home all over Eden, just like people are at home all over Earth. She says Earth would expect that of us, and will come looking for us wherever we are. She says Earth will be disappointed with us if we stay only in one place.’

He looked round our dumbstruck faces. No one would have thought it possible. He was just about the last person in Eden that you’d expect to say a thing like that. I was scared scared someone was going to laugh and it would all fall apart. And I think someone would have done too if he hadn’t said something else that was even more weird and even more unexpected.

‘If you don’t believe me, have a look at this. Gela has given me a sign.’

He reached down, took something from the little pocket at the edge of his waistwrap and held it up between his finger and thumb. It was small small and at first I couldn’t think what it was.

‘You know the story of Gela’s Ring? You remember it? Angela’s lost ring? Well, this is the ring. I found it, soon after she first came to me.’

I started shivering all over. Some of the others cried or laughed, like Angela herself might have done if someone had found the ring for her, long after she had given it up for lost. Some of them swore. Michael’s names! Harry’s dick! Tom’s neck! Even the two little babies picked up the strange feelings all around them and began to yell, first Clare’s little Fox and then Janny’s baby Flower. And after that, would you believe it, the two remaining horsebucks in their cave — Def and Whitehorse, Jeff called them — they started as well, like they could pick up the excitement too, and that made everyone laugh, even the ones who were crying, and even the ones who’d done for other human beings only a few hours before.

But as John moved round everyone showing them the ring, and how tiny and smooth it was, and how it was really made out of metal, and how it had tiny writing inside with Angela’s name, tiny writing that could only have been done on Earth, I started to feel angry.

John had done it again! He’d behaved again like he was the only one in the world that needed to know or decide anything! He’d destroyed Circle without asking anyone, and kept the ring for himself without telling anyone. He’d expected us to follow him and trust him, but he hadn’t trusted any of us at all.

I was so angry I didn’t even care about the ring any more. All I wanted to do was scream and yell at John. But I couldn’t do that then, could I? Angry as I was, I knew that we were all in danger. And I knew that everyone here needed to be able to believe in John and trust him, because what he said was right. We did have to go. We did have to take the risk of going over Snowy Dark.

But then an idea came to me. I realized there was something I could do to stop John having it all his own way, without messing up the things we needed to do.

‘I know,’ I said, ‘let’s do the story now. Let’s do the story of Gela’s Lost Ring. You can be the teller, Dix. I’ll be Angela. Harry, you can be the first Harry. Suzie Fishcreek and Lucy Batwing, you can be the first Suzie and Lucy. Clare, you can be the first Clare, Candy can be Candice. John can be Tommy.’

Everyone was puzzled by this at first. It was too sudden, I suppose, and they couldn’t see the point of it, and it sort of interrupted them in middle of looking at the wonderful perfect ring. But at the same time everyone could see it was, in a way, a suitable thing to do, to remember the story of this famous thing that had just been put in front of them. That was how we’d been brought up. Every Any Virsry we’d been told to remember things, to join the present up with the past.

As for John, when I peeked at him sideways, I could see that he was feeling just like I’d been feeling a few moments before. He was angry angry, he felt set up, he really didn’t want this at all, but at the same time he knew he had to go along with it. I hadn’t given him a choice, just like he hadn’t given me one.

Good! Serve him right. Let him see what it felt like.

‘So this is the story of Angela’s ring and how she lost it,’ began Dix, that kind pretty boy who had stopped to care for me and Jeff while John and the others went belting off to kill.

‘Gela never wanted to come to Eden. She and Michael were made to come here against their will by Tommy and Dixon and Mehmet. She decided to stay and start Family here with Tommy, because she thought it was better to live and see what the future would bring until Earth came back than to go into sky where it was pretty certain that she’d drown. But she was sad. She missed her mum. She missed her father. She missed her group, which was called London, like our first group here in Eden. She missed the great star — Sun — that filled up Earth with light. She missed being with people that she loved and knew. She was sad sad inside. But she didn’t show that to people. She made the best of things. She cared for her kids and did all she could to make their life happy. She even thought about us in the future and . . . and . . .’

He hesitated here, because he was about to say that Gela made Circle of Stones, which is what the story normally said, but he could see that it wouldn’t be right to say that any more (even though everyone knew quite well what it was that he was missing out), and that it was a part of the story that was now going to have to change.

‘ . . . and she made traditions and laws,’ he said, ‘that we still keep. She even made herself love Tommy, though he wasn’t the kind of man she normally liked, and even though he often got angry and sulky, and once twice he even hit her.’

He looked round at John and held out his hand for the ring. I could see John didn’t want to hand it over one bit, but once again he had no choice, not without spoiling the story. Clever Dix. Kind, pretty and clever.

‘Angela had a ring . . .’ Dix stumbled a bit in his words there, because of all the weird feelings that came with telling a story about the ring while the ring itself was right there in his hand, and his voice came out all thick and wobbly, like he was about to cry. ‘Gela had a ring, which was given to her as a present by her mum and her father. (They knew who their fathers were on Earth: they weren’t like we are here.) And the ring . . . the ring had writing inside it, tiny writing that said “To Angela with love from Mum and Dad”.’

He passed the ring to me and I could see that, although he was doing it for the story, he was doing it for my sake too, because he’d seen how I felt about John springing this on us like this, and he wanted to help me feel better. After all, we didn’t need an actual ring to tell the story. Normally when people do the story of Angela’s Ring, they don’t have a ring at all.

‘Then one waking, when she was out in forest scavenging, Gela lost her ring. It slipped off her finger somehow and she couldn’t find it. And then . . .’

And now it was my turn. I was Angela. I dropped the ring on the ground (out of the corner of my eye I could see John wince) and began running back and forth, back and forth, kneeling down, standing up again, moaning, muttering, beginning to cry.

‘Tommy! Tommy!’ I shouted into John’s face. ‘I’ve lost it! I’ve lost my ring!’

John screwed up his face. He really didn’t want to play. This was just timewasting to him, timewasting and unnecessary complication, and anyway he didn’t like the ring to be out of his hands.

‘I’m sure it’ll turn up,’ he said, without even trying to pretend to be Tommy.

‘What do you mean, you bloody idiot? What do you mean it’ll turn up, you useless lump? Help me look for it! Get it back for me. I’m not going to go on without it.’

I glared round at Harry and Suzie and Lucy and Clare and Candy.

‘What are you idiots staring at? Michael’s names! Find the bloody ring for me, can’t you? Do something useful for once in your whole life!’

So they began to look, some getting on their knees, some walking about. Clare and Candy began to cry. Harry was shaking all over and running about like he really did think it was lost.

‘I’ll find it for you, Gela, I’ll find it,’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll find it!’

‘Stop that racket, you snivelling kids,’ I yelled at them, ‘shut it now. I never wanted you, you know. I never wanted to be with him. I never wanted to touch him, never mind slip with him and have his kids . . . It’s my mum and dad and my friends on Earth I love, not any of you, not you stupid lot in this stupid dark dark Eden. And that ring, that ring was the only . . .’

‘Mum, please,’ went Clare, and she was really crying now.

‘Piss off, Clare. I can’t stand the sight of you. Do you know that? I can’t stand the sight of any of you . . .’

Whew! I really let rip, I can tell you. I screamed and yelled till my face was red and the tears were pouring down, and I was sweating and shaking all over. All five of my so-called kids were crying — even though one of them was actually my big brother — and a lot of the people watching were crying too. And the babies were yelling, and the bucks were going eeeek! eeeek! eeeek! in their cave. Even John looked scared.

It must have been scary scary that first time for those five kids, all those wombs and wombs ago, watching their mum fall apart like that and turn on them, when she and Tommy were all they had in the world. It must have been scary scary. Otherwise that story would never have kept going for so long, would it? Not when so many other things have been forgotten and lost, spreading out and out over the generations like the ripples from a stone chucked into a pool, getting smaller and fading away. And the weird weird thing about this story of Angela’s Ring was that it didn’t even have a point to it, no happy ending, no lesson to be learnt. It was like one person’s cry of pain, echoing out on and on and on through the generations, even after that person was long long dead.

So why did we keep doing it? I’d wondered that sometimes, but now I found out. It was because doing it felt great!

‘As for you, Tommy,’ I said, turning on John. ‘As for you, you selfish arrogant bastard. You took me from my mum and dad, you took me from my friends, you took me from my lovely Earth, without letting me in on your plans, without giving me a choice, without thinking about my feelings. And now you can’t even find my ring. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you and I always always will.’

But John just knelt down, picked up the ring and held it out to me.

‘Here it is, Gela, I’ve found it. I’ve found your ring for you after all this time.’

That threw me, I must admit. I wasn’t expecting that move at all.

‘What do you mean? You never found the ring, Tommy. You never did anything that useful in your whole life.’

‘No,’ said John. ‘I’m not Tommy. I’m John. I’m John Redlantern. I’m your great-great-grandson and these are your great-great-grandchildren, trying to make our home in dark Eden, just like you did. I’ve found your ring, Gela. I’ve ended that story. You don’t need to tell that story any more.’

‘Give it back then. Give it back to me now.’

But he had his answer to that as well.

‘No, Gela. You’re dead now. You’re dead and buried under a pile of stones, remember? The ring’s no good to you any more, is it? But I’ll look after it. We’ll look after it. We’ll take it with us over Dark and right to the other side, just where you want us to go.’

And he put the ring back in the pocket in his wrap and came and put his arms round me. Tom’s dick and Harry’s, you’d got to hand it to him! He knew how to stay in control.

My eyes were full of tears and I didn’t know if they were my tears really or Angela’s, just like I didn’t know if I felt comfort in his arms in spite of everything, or whether I hated him more than ever.

And then the story was over, and the decision was made and we were all busying about getting things ready to go up Cold Path into Dark and leave this place for good.